U.S. Treasury Cuts MEXC Global Off From the U.S. Financial System Over $16 Billion in Illicit Flows

The U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Friday that its Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, has issued an order effectively cutting MEXC Global off from the U.S. financial system. The order prevents U.S. financial institutions from processing funds transfers involving MEXC Global. Treasury announced the action as part of Operation Economic Outcast, its campaign against the networks that help Iran move money around U.S. sanctions.

A large exchange, cut off

MEXC Global was founded in 2018 and is one of the 20 largest convertible virtual currency exchangers in the world. As of September 2026, Treasury said, the platform processed more than $1 billion in daily transactions and held about $5 billion in reserves. It offers trading in more than 50 currencies and access to more than 3,000 cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets. Treasury said the platform claims anti-money laundering and customer identification policies and bars users in places such as Iran and North Korea, but that severe gaps in those controls let sanctioned users through anyway.

What FinCEN found

Between May 2021 and May 2026, FinCEN found, MEXC Global facilitated the movement of at least $16 billion in funds connected to sanctions evasion, cybercrime and other illicit activity. That total includes nearly $1.5 billion in transactions linked to Russian sanctions evasion, including $232 million in direct transactions with entities sanctioned by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom.

MEXC was still processing transactions with the sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex, and with its successor Grinex, as recently as June 2026, more than four years after the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Garantex in April 2022. FinCEN also found at least $26 million in transactions benefiting the Russia-based A7 sanctions evasion network, and almost $200 million in transactions connected to the A7A5 stablecoin.

The Iranian and North Korean flows were large as well. Over the same five years, MEXC sent or received about $1 billion in direct transactions with more than 40 identified Iranian crypto exchangers. It facilitated about $22 million in transactions for the Central Bank of Iran and for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Qods Force, Treasury said. Ransomware and scam payments and darknet market activity also ran through the platform, according to the order.

What Treasury said

"Financial institutions cannot have it both ways: Either you support the Iranian regime, or you have access to the U.S. financial system," said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. "Treasury will continue to sever the Iranian regime's economic lifelines and thwart its desperate attempts to circumvent U.S. sanctions using digital assets."

How the order works

The order was issued under section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act. It names MEXC Global as a financial institution of primary money laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance, and it bars covered U.S. financial institutions from any transmittal of funds to or from the exchange. Violations can bring civil or criminal penalties. The order does not change existing duties under the Bank Secrecy Act or sanctions run by the Office of Foreign Assets Control. It takes effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, a step that was still pending on Friday evening. For U.S. customers, the effect is a closed door at one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world.